EEVblog #756 - Mailbag

[EEVblog]

Another Mailbag. Something super cute arrived today!, what is it?



SPOILERS:
Pleo baby animatronic dinosaur!
http://www.pleoworld.com/

5260 Cable simulator teardown
https://supportforums.adtran.com/docs/DOC-6121

Hewlett Packard service manuals
Tektronix PAL Vectorscope
Siemens motor inverters
Fluke One Touch Network Assistant Analyser teardown

[Muttley Snickers]

You've probably thought of this already, but if the Fluke Networks TDR has a cable length feature then you might be able to check out the Cable Simulator with it.

Also possibly a new blog for the younger crowd, EE Veterinarian.

EEVet


Muttley

[orion242]

Nice score on the Siemens gear.  Brand spanking new no less.

Would like to see the IGTB and diode bridge.  From the couple modern vfds I have torn down, they seem to have have to special ICs that contain both in a single custom package tied right to the heatsink.  Far cry from the drives 15yrs ago that would take up 20x the space.  Have not had the luxury of tearing down something that new though or specifically designed for process control apps .  Should be interesting.

[boffin]

Centre Negative:

At 9v it's actually pretty common, as that's what's used with guitar effects pedals.

[SeanB]

Vintage 5.25in drive??? Vintage has to be full height, not a slimline one!

[coppice]

Did Pleo not reach Australia at all. They were sold in all sorts of shops here in HK, not just toy shops.

[station240]

I found the Pleo vs Pleo rb page
http://www.pleoworld.com/pleo_rb/eng/pleovspleorb.php

I can't see any obvious hardware change, other that to relocate the micro SD and USB port into the battery compartment.

[Halcyon]

Centre Negative:

At 9v it's actually pretty common, as that's what's used with guitar effects pedals.

Can't say I've seen too many in Australia. I have a bunch of KVM's here all using 9v DC and all centre positive.

[faheus]

Maybe you should run the Pleo at 8.4V (2 LiPo cells at full charge). It could be that he feel not as exhausted then now

[Fungus]

Maybe you should run the Pleo at 8.4V (2 LiPo cells at full charge). It could be that he feel not as exhausted then now

Yep. I thought that as well.

"Sleeping" looks like the sort of thing it would do when the battery is low. Raise the voltage a bit and see what happens.

[coppice]

That Adtran cable simulator must be for ADSL testing. The usual telephone cable testers are much lumpier, and only achieve 4kHz bandwidth.

[EEVblog]

Maybe you should run the Pleo at 8.4V (2 LiPo cells at full charge). It could be that he feel not as exhausted then now

Yep. I thought that as well.
"Sleeping" looks like the sort of thing it would do when the battery is low. Raise the voltage a bit and see what happens.

There would have been some loss in the leads and contacts too.

[128er]

Nice score with the Siemens stuff, Dave. Would like to see the teardown of them. I have taken apart some SEW brand VFDs in the past and love these custom made IGBT modules with the semiconductors on ceramic substrate.

A few years ago I worked on a really, really heavy machine. With 8 motors, each 185 kW power. The inverters for them were huge beasts. They were fed from a 600 VDC bus, with a common 1200 A 3-phase rectifier. Try to get your hands on one of those 

Sorry for the crude pictures, I took them from a video I made back then.

[pinchies]

Dave, I don't remember paying for mailbag express™ postage? Or is this a FIFO system   

I thought the nice backlit fluke LCD touchscreen seemed like overkill for such a simple device, but I'm sure it must do more than just continuity testing wires...

And from my letter:
Fluke vs Auspost
1 -- Nil

[Fungus]

I thought the nice backlit fluke LCD touchscreen seemed like overkill for such a simple device, but I'm sure it must do more than just continuity testing wires...

It's a network analyzer, not just a cable tester.

It will capture data packets and analyze them, do statistics, tell you about the traffic and if there's a lot of lost packets, that sort of thing.

[Hypernova]

Waiting with keen interest on the Siemens tear down. Where I work I am the main design engineer working on servo drives so this would be interesting.

[faheus]

Maybe you should run the Pleo at 8.4V (2 LiPo cells at full charge). It could be that he feel not as exhausted then now

Yep. I thought that as well.
"Sleeping" looks like the sort of thing it would do when the battery is low. Raise the voltage a bit and see what happens.

There would have been some loss in the leads and contacts too.

so, its time for a quick followup i guess 

[nitro2k01]

I think we have a little misunderstanding at 20:05. 
- You certainly know what David likes.
- Possibly what Sagan likes.
- Yeah, I can see this as a Sega game.

[Chris_PL]

Thumbs up for Ryan If it is really his first "public" video appearance then he did more than good. Good luck!

And kudos to Dave for letting a work experience kid actually do something, instead of "sit, watch, do not disturb and FFS be quiet" - very common thing these days, work experience done only on paper.

[edy]

Awesome video both of you! That Pleo dinosaur was really neat. Looks like it could have been a breakthrough hit but somehow the marketing, supply issues and high cost bungled it all up. I had a look online and the old one is about $350+ and the new one is $450+. Although I am sure it is worth every penny based on the crazy engineering and software that goes into it, I just think it is way out of the budget of most parents who want their kids to have an animatronic toy (as sophisticated and way more advanced as Pleo is to most of the animated plush toys today).

We happen to have a few ourselves.... But we didn't buy them. We have a FurReal Parrot that talks to you, repeats stuff you say, looks for changes in light, responds to petting and food in the mouth:



I had a look on Amazon and they want about $500-600!!!!! Oh my god! Something is definitely wrong with Amazon. By the way you can find used ones on eBay for about $50-70. I'm not sure which one of our friends gave us the parrot (after their kids were done with it) but I can't believe the cost for a new one. That is insanely expensive... Or am I completely out of touch with the price of kids toys these days?

We also have the FurReal Lulu Kitty Cat:



That cat is anywhere from $140 up to some sellers wanting $300 on Amazon. Yet Toys R Us lists it as $75, so something must be wrong with Amazon:

http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index.jsp?productId=10957836

Anyways, it is a cool toy but I'm not sure how the average working joe is supposed to buy their kid something that costly. If it's made for the 1%-ers....

[Someone]

To be sure, Tektronix still make video waveform monitors that will show a vectorscope:
http://www.tek.com/waveform-monitor/wfm8300-8200

[Alex Eisenhut]

Good grief, you CUT *AWAY* from you! Always!

[c4757p]

Good grief, you CUT *AWAY* from you! Always!

Yes, your little helper there is going to fillet himself if you let him use your knife again...

[Alex Eisenhut]

Good grief, you CUT *AWAY* from you! Always!

Yes, your little helper there is going to fillet himself if you let him use your knife again...

Maybe we should buy him one of these gloves:

[Stephan_T]

Maybe we should buy him one of these gloves:

It is Mailbag-Monday, you know.

[SeanB]

Just a small note about those inverters. The inputs and outputs are opto isolated, using a small 24VDC SMPS fed from the main DC bus derived from the mains. However, the controller IC's, displays and push buttons are all running on a 5v rail derived by a non isolated SMPS also driven by the same main DC bus. This makes the driving of the IGBT stage easier, but has the small side effect of having the whole control circuit effectively being connected to the mains, and this can lead to issues if you are using the remote display options on the controllers that have them. There you need to have the entire cable be rated for mains voltage, even though you may only think they are 5V signals.

Also be aware that the inverters have the main DC bus voltage on the terminals, for use as either energy recovery to other drives during braking, or for larger drives if energy recovery is not in use ( or there is too much being fed back) for dissipation in a brake resistor. Some drives may also need an input inductor, there both to improve power factor ( I have not yet seen a drive with active PFC, the mains in industrial plant is a little rough for that at times) and to increase supply inductance, so as to keep the inverter from blowing up, especially in a plant with it's own dedicated supply transformer, where the mains supply impedance can be close to zero.

[Stonent]

A note about the Fluke and the modular design.  Where I work we have the modern version of the One Touch called the One Touch AT.  It is based on the Fluke Versiv platform (which the display and interface module is named) and the back of the unit has little wings that pop out that disengage the back side of it so you can pull the back off and swap out the module.

You can convert it into a network analyzer (One Touch AT), or a fiber inspector or a variety of other devices built on the Versiv platform by purchasing a different backpack module.


Once nice feature is the passthrough mode where you can capture traffic inline as well as pass through PoE and power up a VoIP phone and capture the traffic.  You can the copy the file and inspect it with Wireshark.

[sony mavica]

that dinosaur looks creepy

[ketil b]

Hi just found this on the flebay

thanks

ketil

[bitwelder]

BTW: has anyone measured how long is the PCB trace line from Port A to Port B in that cable simulator?

[Smokey]

So I'm a dickhead... sue me... but...

Is that guy seriously going to school to be a video blogger?  Is that really even an option, or did the guy make that up to get on camera?  No wonder he doesn't want to name is school.  Where does that rank on this illustrious list of majors including Ancient Philosophy, Art History, Religious Studies, Communications....

And watching him try his best to cut his hand off was cringe-worthy.

see... I told you I was a dickhead.


ok.. I assumed freshman in college... . so I just got to the part where he said he was a sophomore in high school.... Maybe I was a little harsh on a sophomore in high school.. but still... highschool youtube work study......  I guess they had to replace "home ec" with something.

[EEVblog]

So I'm a dickhead... sue me... but...
Is that guy seriously going to school to be a video blogger? 

No. He's a high school kid in year 10 who is interested in video.

Is that really even an option, or did the guy make that up to get on camera?  No wonder he doesn't want to name is school.

It would not be kosher to name his school for obvious reasons, and he's smart enough to know that, perhaps more savvy than you in this case it seems.

  Where does that rank on this illustrious list of majors including Ancient Philosophy, Art History, Religious Studies, Communications....

Err, it's 2015. The internet and media and video is a big thing in case you haven't noticed.

ok.. I assumed freshman in college... . so I just got to the part where he said he was a sophomore in high school.... Maybe I was a little harsh on a sophomore in high school.. but still... highschool youtube work study......  I guess they had to replace "home ec" with something.

What do you want him to do? Something he has no interest in?
I appeared at their school careers day and spoke to the kids, Ryan was interested in video so asked if he could join me for work experience week.
That's what they try to do on work experience week, match kids up with employers in the field they have an interest in.
Majority of kids there didn't give a toss, so Ryan is away ahead of the curve.

[nitro2k01]

Is that guy seriously going to school to be a video blogger?  Is that really even an option, or did the guy make that up to get on camera? 

I misinterpreted that too and thought it was weird. In particular the sentence "You know nothing about engineering. You're here for video blogging" at about 10:49 and onward. Of course, that refers to the lab, not his school. The way work experience works, in case it wasn't around when you were young, or perhaps doesn't exist in US culture, is that high school kids are supposed to spend one week at a workplace to be able to experience a workplace firsthand. It's generally a mandatory thing for everyone, and not everyone is lucky enough to get to go to a "fun" workplace.

But like Dave said, ahead of the curve. The ambition is there. Becoming a video blogger is just one click away. Becoming a successful blogger is something else entirely. But even so, there are a number of more professional (employable) lines of work related to video, like editing, CG effects and so on. But formal education can never replace a genuine interest in the subject.

[EEVblog]

But like Dave said, ahead of the curve. The ambition is there. Becoming a video blogger is just one click away. Becoming a successful blogger is something else entirely. But even so, there are a number of more professional (employable) lines of work related to video, like editing, CG effects and so on.

Yes, and he's talking about doing some sort of media type degree, game development, graphics, that kind of stuff.
But he's keen on just video in general and wants to have a shot at being in front of camera doing various stuff.